There will be no more awkward balancing acts or leaning on random pieces of furniture to take shoes on and off at the airport. At long last, the TSA has eliminated the 19-year-old policy that required passengers to take their shoes off when passing through security checkpoints.
“Everything the TSA does and requires of travelers has always been necessary, but they have advanced over the years,” said Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration. “We have made advancements in how we screen individuals.”
Noem cited the addition of new scanners and more officers in some areas as factors in eliminating the shoe policy. In recent years, the TSA has loosened some restrictions on the policy. In 2013, TSA launched the PreCheck Trusted Traveler program, which does not require members to remove their shoes. Children under 12 and adults 75 years or older were also exempt from removing their shoes.
Noem said the elimination of the shoe removal policy doesn’t mean the end of TSA PreCheck.
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“I believe PreCheck will still be something that many travelers will want to utilize, because when they have TSA PreCheck, they won’t have to take off their belt or their coat or remove things out of their bag, such as laptops or compliant liquids,” Noem said.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that other aspects of the TSA’s security process would remain unchanged for most other travelers.
That means the TSA’s unpopular 3-1-1 liquids rule will remain in place. The rule, which restricts passengers to bringing 3.4-ounce or smaller containers that can fit in a one-quart sealed reusable bag, was introduced worldwide as “a temporary measure” after a foiled plot by Al Qaeda in August 2006, during which terrorists attempted to disguise liquid explosives as drinks at Heathrow.
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There were promising signs in recent years that the 3-1-1 rule may be phased out. In the UK, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed in 2019 that the rule would be eased at major UK airports by 2022. Rishi Sunak’s government then extended that deadline to June 1, 2024.
Getting rid of England’s 3-1-1 rule depended on airports adopting advanced 3-D scanners, called Computed Tomography (CT) units, that can easily determine the difference between liquids. These are similar to medical scanners, which analyze the molecular structure of the contents of a passenger’s bag and detect potential threats. The scanners are currently used in several US airports, including international departures in Logan’s Terminal E.
The original plan required all major UK airports to have the new scanners in place by June 2024, which would allow the elimination of 3-1-1. However, several hubs missed the deadline, prompting the country’s Department for Transport (England’s version of the Department of Transportation) to extend the rollout to July 2025. So far, only Birmingham and Edinburgh airports have received approval to lift the restriction, and the rule remains in effect at most airports there.
In the United States, there has been little discussion of removing 3-1-1. Last year, a TSA spokesperson told Travel + Leisure that the 3-1-1 rule will likely remain in effect until 2040, when CT units have been fully deployed across the country.
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So it appears that we’ll have 15 more years of putting travel-size bottles in clear plastic bags.
Both the liquids rule and the shoe rule came from post-9/11 Al Qaeda plots to bring down planes.
On Dec. 22, 2001, Richard Reid boarded American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami wearing shoes that had been packed with explosives. Passengers and crew, still hypervigilant from the Sept. 11 attacks just months before, noticed Reid struggling to light a fuse in his boots and restrained and tranquilized him. The flight was diverted to Logan, and state police arrested him.
Reid, better known as the Shoe Bomber, was sentenced to three life terms plus 110 years in prison without parole. While his name slipped out of the headlines 20 years ago, the shoe rule remained an ever-present part of flying.
Christopher Muther can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @Chris_Muther and Instagram @chris_muther.